News & analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by Matthew Stiegler

Appellate-rule amendments proposed

The Judicial Conference rules committee this week issued proposed changes to various federal rules, including the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. A link to the proposed amendments is here, with written comments here sought by February 17, 2015. Bruce Greenberg provides a lucid synopsis here of the changes at his New Jersey Appellate Blog. Howard Bashman also had an uncharacteristically lengthy post about the word-count change Wednesday at How Appealing.

The proposal many lawyers probably care about most is the change to Rule 32 that would cut the word limit for opening briefs about 10%, from 14,000 words to 12,500 words. Personally, I’m not too vexed about that one; I agree with Scalia and Garner that “[t]he power of brevity is not to be underestimated,” so I work hard to write concise briefs and I usually come in well under the limit.

On the other hand, I surely would miss the extra 3 days to file now granted to rules-hounds by Rule 26(c).

I may have more to say on the amendments after I’ve had more time to consider them.